Maraniss portrays the teenage Obama as not just a pot smoker, but a pot-smoking innovator.

“As a member of the Choom Gang,” Maraniss writes, “Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends.”

The first Obama-inspired trend: “Total Absorption” or “TA”.

“TA was the opposite of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled,” explains Maraniss. Here’s how it worked: If you exhaled prematurely when you were with the Choom Gang, “you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around.”…

Maraniss also says Obama was known for his “Interceptions”: “When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted ‘Intercepted!,’ and took an extra hit.”

Reason’s Mike Riggs titles his post on this, “Barack Obama punishes people for getting high; it used to be, he punished them for not getting high enough.” Plenty more details at the ABC link above, but for further reading let me recommend instead this instant classic from BuzzFeed illustrating key moments of “Choom Gang” lore with period photos. Here’s my favorite. He didn’t always lead from behind, my friends:

Coming in a close second to “Roof Hits”: “Pumping Stations.” Click over and tell me I’m wrong. And after you’ve done that, if you missed it a few days ago, watch this profane but compelling rant from Penn Jillette on the absurdity of O treating marijuana as a threat worthy of prohibition even though he managed to do okay for himself after using it — a lot, apparently. Exit question: What’s more startling about the “Choom Gang” revelations, the fact that O was so immersed in stoner culture or the fact that he was at one point a seemingly outgoing guy with lots of friends? I thought he was a loner.

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One of the favorite words in their subculture revealed their democratic nature. The word was veto. Whenever an idea was broached, someone could hold up his hand in the V sign (a backward peace sign of that era) and indicate that the motion wash not approved. They later shortened the process so that you could just shout “V” to get the point across. In the Choom Gang, all V’s were created equal.

…THANK YOU MSM!!!…bet he’s still at it in the White House…all you have to do is look how he acts and the decisions he makes.
…JugEars could pass a big fat one around at staff meetings…and the MSM would only look at each other and question the smell.

What’s more startling about the “Choom Gang” revelations, the fact that O was so immersed in stoner culture or the fact that he was at one point a seemingly outgoing guy with lots of friends? I thought he was a loner.

these dichotomies are compelling. Either a loner, or a friend with weed? Either Hawaii, or Kenya. Either an author, or Ayers wrote it.

You never know what you’re going to get with this guy, but its becoming safer to assume the worst, isn’t it?

In hindsight, knowing what we now know, imagine if the media had given the Bush cocaine issue its due in the fall of 2000. What if our national press editors and media pundits had insisted that Bush give a clear and candid answer to the cocaine issue before the 2000 presidential election? You know what I’m getting at. It doesn’t take a leap of brilliance to fill in the blanks. To wit: Our nation would be much better off today if members of the mainstream media had simply done their job on that score, rather than abdicating their vigilance for the sake of decorum. How much responsibility should they bear today for our current state of affairs? You decide–I’d like to hear your responses.

/HuffPo

Bush never said whether he did Cocaine or not while Barry bragged about it in his book. I guess HuffPo will be calling for Obama to resign any day now./

“This is a hybrid. This is a cross, ah, of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia. The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff.” – Barry Obama in 1980

methods; Two samples of college undergraduates: 65 heavy users, who had smoked marijuana a median of 29 days in the past 30 days (range, 22 to 30 days) and who also displayed cannabinoids in their urine, and 64 light users, who had smoked a median of 1 day in the last 30 days (range, 0 to 9 days) and who displayed no urinary cannabinoids.

results: Heavy users displayed significantly greater impairment than light users on attentional/executive functions, as evidenced particularly by greater perseverations on card sorting and reduced learning of word lists. These differences remained after controlling for potential confounding variables, such as estimated levels of premorbid cognitive functioning, and for use of alcohol and other substances in the two groups.

implications: Heavy marijuana use is associated with residual neuropsychological effects even after a day of supervised abstinence from the drug. However, the question remains open as to whether this impairment is due to a residue of drug in the brain, a withdrawal effect from the drug, or a frank neurotoxic effect of the drug.(JAMA. 1996;275:521-527)

Mr. Obama has said a lot of unsmart things: there are 57 states; Canada has a president; “Austrian” is a language; America is “20 centuries” old; Arabic is spoken in Afghanistan. He’s called the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) the Maldives, and declared it would be “unprecedented” for the Supreme Court to invalidate a law passed by Congress.

I never heard of roof hits. We used to call it hotboxing. I will say this. I don’t some anymore but I do drink and I do think drinking is worse than smoking. I don’t understand why liquor which kills millions is legal but marijuana isn’t.

…THANK YOU MSM!!!…bet he’s still at it in the White House…all you have to do is look how he acts and the decisions he makes.
…JugEars could pass a big fat one around at staff meetings…and the MSM would only look at each other and question the smell. applaud loudly.
KOOLAID2 on May 25, 2012 at 2:08 PM

Not really. True Libertarians (definitely not the Bill Maher / Woody Harrellson types) are for smaller government and less punitive drug laws. As Penn Gillette correctly points out, King Barry supports jail sentences for drug possession, while he himself used drugs regularly in his youth.

Or, not in the same category…Ted Bundy…or this guy, Jason Brown
first-degree murder, armed robbery and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, still at large (ironically also a mission in Paris, France)…Butch Cassidy was a Mormon, who woulda thunk…

The fact is, people are people…Mitt is who he is because he is Mitt, not because Mormon’s tell him to be Mitt.

Smoking cow pies was all the rage in SE Asia at the time Obama was Indonesia. Wonder if President Cow Pies ever tried this:

Narcotics agents in Singapore are keeping a wary eye on drug addicts to make sure they do not start smoking dried cow manure…

In nearby Malaysia, the national news agency Bernama reported today that desperate dope addicts unable to get heroin “are burning dried cow dung and inhaling the smoke to relieve their pangs of addiction.”

“The news agency quoted an official of Malaysia’s anti-drug abuse association, Pemadam, as saying that drug addicts were “resorting to dried cow-dung to get high.”
-from the Reading Eagle, Jan 9, 1985.

Thai teens, too. The Cow Pie Preezy was awfully venturesome back in the day. Creative with MJ. Ate dog. Just sayin’.

“In fact, most members of the Choom Gang were decent students and athletes who went on to successful and productive lawyers, writers and businessmen,” Maraniss writes. One notable exception was Ray, the group’s pot dealer who, known for his ability “to score quality bud,” would years later be killed by a scorned gay lover armed with a ball-peen hammer.

Well then we’re even because I was trying to figure out what your point was by mentioning Bush’s alcoholism.

Bishop on May 25, 2012 at 2:30 PM

I wasn’t even directing my comment to you. I was directing it to some garment-render who simply couldn’t believe that this country could elect someone with SUCH a background. I was making the point that Republican presidents also have flaws and that this was (yet another) example of right wing hypocrisy.

This is so totally disgusting and where was this stuff 4 years ago? It shouldda sunk his candidacy in a swift nanosecond. So if inhaling makes the guy personable, then I guess he hasn’t been inhaling much lately. And then I also guess Bubba who couldn’t inhale at all wouldda never made it into that gang.

Worst of it is that there are probably hordes of black, white and hispanic youth looking at this and seeing it as “cool” bcuz everything Oburnout does has that cool wow factor. I’d hazard an easy guess that the slimestreamers won’t cover it, Odruggie won’t address it and neither will the clamuppaign acknowledge it.

It is beyond comprehension and totally reprehensible to me that we have a burnout junkie drug addict for a Prezuhdunce–and doesn’t that explain the smug, the thug and the ineptitude, inability and the absolute incompetence of everything this space cadet has screwed up. He’s the pinnacle of hypocrisy.